


Like a Butterfly

by jaemhugs



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung | Jr., Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung | Jr., Fluff and Angst, Human Park Jinyoung | Jr., Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Park Jinyoung | Jr.-centric, Romance, Soft Im Jaebum | JB, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Tourette's Syndrome, Triggers, idk why I specified he's human they're all humans in this fic, jinyoung has Tourette's, read notes for trigger warnings please!!, tics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 15:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17004105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaemhugs/pseuds/jaemhugs
Summary: Jinyoung has Tourette's.Jaebum has both physical painkillers that can help with Jinyoung's figurative and literal pain in the neck, as well as words that can kill the younger boy's emotional pains.





	Like a Butterfly

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This fic revolves heavily around the topic of tics and Tourette's Syndrome. If you feel like this might trigger tics for you then you might not want to read this. I'm really sorry if I trigger any tics!
> 
> Please please please please please do not take this as diagnosis criteria! If you think you have TS/other tic disorders please see your local practitioner. 
> 
> I'm no expert on TS, nor have I been formally diagnosed with TS. if you have questions though, leave them in the comments and I'll try to answer them based on experience/medical websites:)

“You're home, babe,” Jaebum says, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders. 

“No shit, Sherlock.” The two boys laugh, and Jaebum pretends to be in a huff, folding his arms and turning away, before breaking out into the softest giggles known to mankind. 

“How was your day?” 

Jinyoung blinks a few times before replying. “Pretty shit, man.”

Jaebum doesn't really know what to say, so he goes into the kitchen, gently pulling the younger boy by the wrist. When he lets go, Jinyoung tenses his arm for a couple of seconds before relaxing it. 

“Ramen?”

“Sure.” He blinks again. 

“So, tell me about your day.” 

“Like I said, pretty shit.” He jerks his head to his right side, as if stretching the left side of his neck. “Really shit, actually. I have a maths test tomorrow, and a history pop quiz the day after. People around me are telling me not to stress, as if that's so easy, with all that…” He trails off, gesturing to his body in a vague manner. 

There's something that you should know about Jinyoung, actually. When he was five, he was out in the sun all day and he had to squint in order to see on that picnic. By the time he got home, he was used to squinting, and blinking hard was the only thing that could relieve the tension in his face. It started off with blinking, and then it built up to furrowing his eyebrows, to rolling his shoulders back, to clearing his throat, to the hard neck pulls. 

When his parents asked him if they were deliberate and he said they were, they thought he was just doing it for attention. Which it wasn't. It wasn't exactly uncontrollable. It started with the need to jerk his neck, or to blink, and then the tension built up, the urge to do it getting stronger until he did it. So it wasn't that he couldn't control it, but it just felt better if he were to do it. And sometimes, it wasn't that he even knew he needed to do it, until he was doing it. It was fine if it was something small like tensing his toes or something, but when it came to exams and he was jerking his head to the side every five seconds, he wished that he could just do it without making people stare. 

It was better than when he was younger, at least, when he would repeat the last word of every sentence he uttered. Teachers thought he was muttering something under his breath, and students thought he was some kind of dark wizard. That was really bad. 

“Did someone say something?” Jaebum asks. Jinyoung shakes his head, and then clears his throat. 

“No, but they just…” he says, trailing off as a burst of tics come through; his eyes blinking rapidly, doing the neck pull, rolling his shoulders back. “Sorry,” he begins again, before more tics come through. 

“Don't apologize; it's fine. Take your time.” 

Taking a deep breath in to settle his tics, Jinyoung tries again. “They just stare. A lot.”

“Yeah. Bet they're thinking, ‘God, I want a piece of this. So hot. Too bad he has a boyfriend that's equally hot, t-”

“Hyung!”

“Sorry!”

“It's fine. But people stare,” Jinyoung explains, arching his back ever so slightly, “and it's never for the good reasons. Like today, in the book we’re reading for Literature, the main character has Tourette’s, and it…” 

Jaebum nods understandingly, rubbing the younger boy’s arched back. “Oh, honey,” is all he can think to say. 

“It triggered some of my old tics,” Jinyoung admits, cringing at the lesson in the morning. “Like the clicking sound I make when my tongue hits the roof of my mouth. And it's so frustrating because it's so loud and everyone knows it's me.” He makes the clicking sound, which is followed by neck tensing and eyebrow raising. He just wants it to stop for a bit. He just wants to be able to catch a break from these tics. “But that's not the worst part.”

Jaebum holds Jinyoung’s hand, not quite sure how the boy can put away his fears and face the world; not to mention, Jinyoung’s day sounds so shitty already that the older boy can't really imagine how it could get any worse. 

“Every time in Literature, when the protagonist’s tics are mentioned, everyone looks at me.” 

“Can I give you a hug?” Jaebum asks after hearing the worst part of Jinyoung’s day. 

\---

Jinyoung hates the fact that his boyfriend has to ask every time he wants to give him a hug, in case it might trigger some tics. But it's necessary. There are days when anything that makes contact with his skin can make him tense that muscle and release it only when it feels better. So Jaebum just needs to know whether it's a day whether he can handle the hug or not. 

But sometimes, Jinyoung just really needs that hug. Maybe it's a day that he can take the hug. Maybe it's a day where he needs the hug so that his tensing-and-relaxing muscles can feel the pressure they need. Maybe it's a day where he can't really take the hug but Jaebum is just so, so good at hugging and it feels nice. Or maybe it's a day where everything hurts, his tics matching with the second hand on the clock, any kind of contact causing him to tic, and people stare and whisper and giggle quietly and mock him - these are the days where hugs go beyond the line of ‘want’ and to the point of ‘need.’

\---

“Sure.” The two wrap the arms around each other, and Jinyoung puts his head in Jaebum’s neck. Soon, and without any particular warning whatsoever, the older boy can feel tears on the shoulder of his shirt.

Sitting Jinyoung on the sofa, he kneels down in front of him. “Hey, what’s wrong; why are we crying?” 

Slightly embarrassed, Jinyoung wipes the tears from his eyes. Through his sniffles and his tics, he tells the older boy, “I can’t stand my tics.” He tenses his neck and blinks hard a few times. “I hate this shit and I can't tell if coprolalia is fucking with me or whether it's pure anger, or whether it's both. Shit. I hate it so much, hyung. Why...just why? Why do I have to be like this?” Blinking again a few times, he repeats his last two words under his breath.

Amid the sobs, Jaebum takes the younger boy’s hands into his own. “Babe, will you listen to me? Just for a minute?” Jinyoung nods, arching his back slightly. He sniffles and gulps. “The universe...it was destined for us to be together. And if anything - even the tiniest thing - changed, everything would be so much more different. Like the butterfly effect, when a flutter of a butterfly's wings can cause a typhoon. I know you really dislike - hate, even - your tics, but they’re part of you. And I love you so, so, so much. I want you to know that I love every single part of you. And when I say that, I mean your tics too. I hope that one day, your tics get better and that you’ll be in less pain, but regardless of what happens, no matter what...I love you.” 

He uses his thumb to wipe away the tears that Jinyoung didn’t get earlier. “Where does it hurt?” Jinyoung gestures to his neck, before tensing his neck a few times. “I’ll get you a painkiller from the kitchen and then maybe we can get some rest.”

Under his breath, Jinyoung whispers the last few words that Jaebum said, before unleashing another round of uncontrollable tears.

“I’m sorry for being like this, hyung.”

That last part really gets to Jaebum. He wants to cry too, and he knows he will later, but maybe not just yet - he has to stay strong for Jinyoung, for now. He searches in the cupboard for a Panadol, and then opens the fridge door, trying to find the milk.

“Don’t be, babe. There’s nothing you have to feel sorry about.” 

Rummaging in the fridge a little longer, Jaebum looks up and smiles. “Well, maybe except for not buying more milk. We’ll have to settle for juice, I guess.”

“That’s fine.”

Jaebum pours two glasses of juice and brings them out, setting them on the coffee table, before handing Jinyoung a painkiller. The two boys clink glasses, and Jinyoung drinks the pill with it too. 

When they finish, they place the glasses back on the table. “Ready for bed?” Jaebum asks.

“Wait, I’ll wash the glasses,” the younger boy replies, clearing his throat but trying to do so as quietly as he can without waking Mark and Jackson up.

“It’s fine. We can do it tomorrow morning.”

Jinyoung shakes his wrists out. “You’ve been saying for the last few weeks,” he points out.

“Well, it’s almost as if we’ve got a dishwashing fairy in our house. It's like we've got an endless supply of clean dishes in the house.”

Jinyoung laughs and shrugs, before that triggers more of his rolling-shoulders-back tics. He opens his mouth to apologize, before Jaebum silently leans over to interrupt that with a kiss, leaving Jinyoung speechless and unable to move. 

Jaebum takes the younger boy’s hand, dragging the otherwise-frozen boy to their room, a smirk covering his face. “Goodnight, babe,” he says, before pulling his boyfriend under the covers and pressing a kiss to Jinyoung’s soft lips once more. 

For a moment, Jinyoung doesn't feel himself tensing anything in his body, or even the need to do so. He loves this feeling - the feeling of being relaxed and calm, his boyfriend’s lips on his own - and he wishes he could stay like this forever…

Yet, the moment of being tic-free is so transient, vanishing before he can even process it, flying away like a butterfly. It comes and goes so quickly, like when a butterfly comes to sit on your finger. It's something so fluid and transient like everything else in this world, but there's some kind of wistfulness that follows behind as this particular ‘butterfly’ flutters away. 

As if Jaebum can read Jinyoung’s mind, the older boy smiles and says, “I don't know what it is, but you're like a butterfly, babe. You're my butterfly.”

Wrapping his arms around his boyfriend, Jinyoung leans in close, tensing various muscles around his body before letting go. And then he smiles too, closing his eyes, ready to go to sleep. Because if there's one thing in this world that helps Jinyoung fall asleep, relaxed and tic-free for the entire night - it's knowing that neither Jaebum, his own butterfly, nor the love that Jinyoung holds for him, will ever leave from his finger...or his heart. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So um yeah! I hope y'all liked that and lemme know if you have questions:)
> 
> i drank boba earlier and the caffeine really messed my sleep schedule up and tics are being a bitch so 
> 
> :)


End file.
